Matt Hewitt is the CTO of the Manufacturing Business Division at Charles River Laboratories.
Jeff Holder is a Partner and Managing Director at LEK Consulting, advising biopharma and investors on cell and gene therapy strategy since the first CAR-T approvals in 2017.
In Today’s Episode We Discuss:
- JPM 2026: Cell & Gene Therapy Interest — Real or Cooling?
- Manufacturing Cost Is Not the Real Barrier to Adoption
- “Do Boring Better” — The 2026 Investor Thesis for Modular Modalities
- The Reimbursement Problem: Monthly Payments vs. One-Time Cures
- FACT Accreditation and Payer Dynamics
- Should Cell Therapy Be Classified as a Procedure, Not a Drug?
- “The Cheapest Patient Is a Dead Patient” — European Payer Realities
- The Provider Journey: 80% of Cancer Patients Are Managed in Community Settings
- “Brain to Vein” — Why Clinician Education Is the Real Bottleneck
- Only 20% of Eligible US Patients Get Cell Therapy (5% Globally)
- The Biologics Benchmark: 12 Years from First Approval to First Blockbuster
- Cell Therapy Reached 600 Pipeline Candidates in 8 Years (vs. 22 for Antibodies)
- “Top of the Third Inning” — Why Investors Keep Getting the Timeline Wrong
- Why This Space Is “ADHD” — And Why That’s a Feature
- The Hardest Decision: Telling Parents You Can’t Help Their Child
- Patient Days: Why Teams Need to See the Human Impact
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